


Hello Severus

by amanitamuscaria



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 08:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8394166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amanitamuscaria/pseuds/amanitamuscaria
Summary: Defeating Voldemort cannot be done alone.Road Not Taken Fest, 2014





	

Hello Severus  
by amanitamuscaria

 

Potter barges into his mind and the images flicker past. A small boy crouched in a corner while two adults fight; children surround a ragged, oddly-dressed boy, teasing and sneering; he is hoisted up while a crowd of schoolmates watch and a black-haired boy calls out, "Who wants to see me take down Snivellus's pants?" and then, the snake-like slit red eyes, curious, malicious, are insinuating themselves into the scene, into both their minds, and they both react instinctively, flinging the third out, breaking the connection, glaring at each other from floor where they are both sprawled.  
"Was that ..."  
"You imbecile, Potter ..."  
But Snape, mid-snarl, clutches at his left arm and gasps, "I must go. You - tell the Headmaster - I must go, now!"  
"But - you can't! He knows now, doesn't he?"  
"Of course he knows, you little fool!"  
Snape like this is even more frightening, as he stands and swirls over to the door.  
"Get out! Tell the Headmaster!"  
Harry scrambles to his feet, but stops; "You can't go. He'll kill you."  
"Ha! You think not going will save me? Run away, foolish child!"  
Harry races to the Headmaster's office - maybe if he can get there in time, maybe Dumbledore can stop Snape? He doesn't stop to analyse why he suddenly, desperately wants Snape to live, not to suffer at Voldemort's hand.  
Shouting at the gargoyle never had any effect before, but as Harry breathlessly shouts, "Bertie Botts! Fizzing Whizzbees! Toffee! Fudge!", the revolving staircase appears, and Dumbledore is waiting at the door when Harry gets there in three leaps.  
"Prof- Snape! Stop him!"  
Dumbledore grasps his arm firmly and sits him in the chair. "Now then, my boy, tell me exactly why I should stop Professor Snape, and what it is I should stop him doing?"  
"No time! He's going to Voldemort - "  
"Yes, yes; I presume he was summoned?"  
"Yes, but - Occlumency lessons - Voldemort appeared in the middle of them -"  
The twinkle in Dumbledore's blue eyes vanishes.  
"He - appeared?"  
"I'd broken into Snape's mind -"  
"Professor Snape's,"  
"Yeah, him; and suddenly, there were his eyes, red and snaky, looking around. We both threw him out, but he clutched his arm and said he had to go, and I was to tell you."  
Dumbledore's usually smiling lips thin and disappear into his beard.  
"He has gone?"  
"Yes! Just now! You have to stop him - Voldemort's going to kill him!"  
The Headmaster looks at Harry curiously, but says, "I cannot stop him, Harry. In the time you would have taken to get here, he will have gone."  
"But - he'll die! He said - do you think not going would save me? - he knows he's going to die, and he's going anyways! We have to stop him!"  
"Alas, I cannot. And I am afraid Severus is quite right - not going would not save him."  
"So, what, we just sit here and wait? Do nothing?"  
Harry stares aghast at the Headmaster, who he's always thought to be kind, even if he no longer believes him all-powerful.  
"It is not that I am not concerned, Harry. But in this situation, I can do nothing. Severus has natural guile, skills Voldemort has no notion of. What was it you were seeing when Voldemort intruded?"  
But Harry cannot answer the question; his head feels as if it's cleaved in two by the pain.  
Snape is a black huddle on the dusty floor, flashes of white and red turning into view as he writhes and arches from the pain. He has bitten through his lip, his nose and ears are streaming blood over the ashen pallor of his skin. It goes on and on.

When Harry comes to, he is in a small room in the Hospital Wing. A blurred movement out of the corner of his eye - he fumbles for his glasses, and Dobby comes into focus.  
"Dobby -" he can hardly speak.  
Dobby brings him a glass of water, holding his head up to drink. He feels as if twenty bludgers have been using him for target practice.  
"Dobby, is Snape back?"  
The elf shakes his head mournfully, ears flapping.  
"Do you know where he is?"  
A sudden plan forming in his mind, "Could you find him? Can you find him for me?"  
Dobby tilts his head, considering.  
"It's a large room, with a fireplace, all dusty - " Harry tries to recall any distinguishing features - "He was in a large chair, black, like a throne - Voldemort, I mean, he was alone, I think."  
He looks up; Dobby is looking doubtfully at him.  
"Can you find him? Bring him back here?"  
"Dobby will try. But Harry Potter must rest."  
"I can't rest, Dobby; not until I know he's back at Hogwarts and safe."  
Dobby's huge eyes stare at him.  
"Harry Potter cares even for Professor Snapsey, even though Professor Snapsey pushes Harry Potter away. Dobby will try."  
The little elf vanishes in a snap of his fingers, and Harry sees Professor Dumbledore is standing in the door of the room.  
"Professor Snape's not back, is he?"  
The Headmaster shakes his head sorrowfully, "No Harry, he is not. Will you please tell me what you saw, in detail?"  
"Voldemort was Crucioing him," he says dully, suddenly realising that what he's seen is probably very like how the Longbottoms lost their minds.  
"He's not coming out of this alive, is he?"  
The Headmaster frowns at him. "I have found it unwise to write off Severus before we have conclusive evidence of his demise. He has the ability to survive where others would surely perish."  
"But -"  
"The best thing you can do for him just now is to tell me everything you recall about this incident, Harry."

He is kept in the Hospital Wing that day without visitors, for which he is very grateful. His head is still pounding, but more, he has some thinking to do. Snape hates him - he doesn't dare think how much Snape hates him, now he's seen - what? The child cowering from the screaming adults, the boy being teased and bullied; obviously Snape. And how strange to feel the echoes of his own past there. But the boy who was bullying Snape, who had levitated him up, that boy was all too familiar to Harry.  
Could Snape have set up those memories to trick Harry? Surely he wouldn't have shown himself in such a poor light in that case. And the other memories, there was nothing he was connected to in those, but Snape. He tried to form some justification for the other black-haired boy's actions - perhaps Snape had fired a really awful curse, maybe even an Unforgiveable in the moments before the memory? But no - what he had seen the black-haired boy doing was not from anger or fear. He knew bullying when he saw it, and Harry's father had been gleefully bullying Snape in front of his classmates.  
Harry gloomily considers the next part. He knows his reactions, and of course, he had reacted to try to protect Snape. He snorts ruefully. Protect Snape. Sure. And Snape had reacted in precisely the way Snape would, if offered protection by Harry Potter.  
Perhaps the man's crazy courage lay in that nickname? Snivellus - it wasn't so far from Dudley and his gang tormenting him, and he'd replied, not with blows but with words. He'd enjoyed mocking and sneering at Dudley.  
Luckily, Ron and Hermione arrive to distract him from those thoughts, and the short visit - "Blimey, mate - you missed Binns teaching Potions - what a farce!" leaves him in a better frame of mind.  
It is still worrying - Snape has been missing for almost a whole day, and for all Dumbledore's sanguinity, Harry doesn't think anyone could survive more than a short spell of Voldemort's anger. On the other hand, he hadn't had any reaction in his scar since waking, so that has to be good, he hopes. He hopes it isn't because there is no more point to torturing Snape.  
It is late afternoon, and Madam Pomfrey has been in to decide he wouldn't be going down to supper in the Great Hall - you are still sensitive to loud noise - when Dobby appears at the foot of his bed with what looks like a large bundle of sticks wrapped in tatters of black cloth.  
Harry leaps up as soon as he realises what it is, shouting for Madam Pomfrey, gesturing for Dobby to lay the man down on his bed.  
"Oh, Dobby, well done; is he alive?"  
He pushes back hanks of the sticky hair from the bone-white face, and flinches from the bared clenched teeth, lips chewed bloody, tightly shut eyes. The arms and legs appear almost disjointed.  
"Out of the way, Harry," Madam Pomfrey bustles in, Dumbledore close after her.  
As soon as she touches him, a horrible wail comes from the rigid jaws and the body flinches violently.  
She starts back, glancing at the Headmaster.  
Dumbledore steps up, placing his hand on Snape's, and again, he wails, nearly throwing himself from the bed.  
They both turn to look at Harry.  
"What? I didn't do anything! He didn't make that noise when I touched him ..."  
"Exactly, my boy. If you would please touch him again?"  
Pomfrey looks as if she might protest, but the Headmaster holds up his hand.  
"Harry?"  
He reaches out a finger, gingerly placing it on Snape's hand, suddenly horrified to realise the long fingers are bent in directions they shouldn't go. He strokes along the distorted hands, feeling his hatred and revulsion for Voldemort grow.  
"So. We will need your help here, Harry. It appears your wish to help Professor Snape has been granted," Dumbledore twinkles.  
Harry looks between the Headmaster and the nurse.  
"You will need to learn the incantations, Mr. Potter. We shall have to reset all poor Severus's bones. Come, I will take you through what you will need to do."  
He follows the nurse to her office, glancing back to see the Headmaster bent over his Potions Master, murmuring softly.

He learns the incantation without too much trouble, but Pomfrey's anatomy and bone realignment lessons are not so easy. He remembers when Piers Polkiss dislocated his shoulder, a doctor had tried to reposition it straight away but Piers had screamed and sobbed, and had to be taken to hospital. It had been several months before he had full use of the arm and even then, the punches which he delivered on that side were weak. Harry is terrified of making a mistake; he’s certain Snape would never forgive him if he set his feet pointing backwards or made those graceful hands awkward and clumsy.  
After some hours, Dumbledore calls him to Snape's bedside.  
"Harry, do you not want to help Professor Snape?"  
"I do, very much."  
"Then what is the problem? I can't keep him in stasis for much longer; we will have to do something."  
"I'm afraid of getting this wrong."  
"Is it because it is Professor Snape? If it were Mr. Weasley, or Miss Granger, would you still be as reluctant?"  
"I don't know. I wish it wasn't me that had to do this."  
"I know, my boy. I, too, wish either Madam Pomfrey, or myself, or another healer could do it. But we can't. If we knew why only you can touch Severus, we might be able to circumvent it, but we can't bring him to wakefulness before we heal him. We are running out of time, Harry."  
"I don't want to do it wrong," he says in a small voice.  
"Whatever you do, he will be better than how he is now. You can only improve the situation."  
"All right, then. I'll try my best."  
And he intends to do his very best to align those long limbs, to put Snape back together again as well as he can. Working with Pomfrey on one shoulder, Dumbledore on the other, with advice and suggestions, he concentrates on shoulders, elbows, suddenly realising he can compare what he does with the incantation to the way his own joints feel. Hips, knees and feet, then he goes back to the arms, more confident now, making small readjustments, and finally he is ready to tackle the hands. He finishes the last finger and the Headmaster levitates Snape upright. Harry suddenly realises the back, too, has been broken and needs his attention. Fearful once more - he vaguely recalls a broken back can mean paralysis - he works from the heavy skull downwards, not noticing that he is cradling the Potions Master's arse, moving the vertebrae into alignment, settling the coccyx into its proper place. Finished, he suddenly blushes, realising that he would now be able to say definitively that, no, Snape does not have a broomstick up his arse. As he slumps, suddenly overcome with weariness, Dumbledore lowers the man to horizontal, and looks at Harry.  
"One last task, I'm afraid, and then we can let you both rest."  
He looks at the Headmaster for a long while, then understands, blushing more fiercely. Of course - the blood must come from somewhere, and they can't put Snape in the bed without cleaning him.  
He follows the Headmaster who levitates Snape to the washroom.  
Curious and embarrassed, put-upon, resentful and fascinated, he soaks off the black clothes, the water running bloody, filthy and dark, lifts the heavy black mat of hair until it separates into strands, sloughs water until the limbs emerge pale. He does not look at some areas, averts his eyes and works by touch until he realises where his fingers are, then jerks them hurriedly away.  
Finally, finally the job is done and he gently blots the water away. There are cuts and contusions, but nothing as bad as he'd feared from the initial appearance of the man. Pomfrey reminds him of the healing spells, unlike the almost-sung spell Snape had performed on Malfoy that time in the bathroom, and he is done. He is more than done, exhausted, hungry, and too full of today to think.  
"Go, have some time with your friends, my boy. But do not mention Professor Snape to anyone, anyone at all. We need to keep his presence here a secret, until we discover what it is Voldemort has done. And Harry?"  
Harry turns, he was nearly out of the door; "You will need to return morning, midday and evening. What shall we say - an illness that requires you to have ongoing assessment and treatment - blibbering bleurepsy might suit?"  
He glances at the nurse, who nods, and Harry is free to go.

If Harry thought caring for Snape was difficult whilst the man was unconscious, it’s nothing to what happens when Snape awakes.  
Harry thinks that perhaps the Headmaster has been extending the coma, to put off this moment.  
“What – what are you doing, boy? Get off! Unhand me!”  
Harry jerks his hands back, the hands that had been washing Snape, cradling the head, running gently through the long strands of hair. He had forgotten himself in the actions, had drifted off into a place of not-thinking, just enjoying the motion of carding through hair.  
“This is a nightmare,” Snape tells himself decisively, though the voice is weak and quavery. He pokes Harry’s arm, but what was intended to be a hard sharp prod is a puny nudge, and Snape winces.  
”What have you done – oh, god; more torture,” and to Harry’s distress, Snape’s head drops and his hands cover his face.  
“No – no, you’re in Hogwarts, Professor!”  
He slides his hand comfortingly over the shuddering back, which flinches away.  
“We found you, well, Dobby found you, and brought you back. You’ve been in the Infirmary for a couple of weeks, you’d been banged up pretty bad.”  
He is shocked to see tears running down the face that turns to look at him.  
“I am too tired, and too far gone. Do your worst.”  
Poppy Pomfrey bustles in, “Harry, I thought I heard – oh good! You are awake, Severus! We have been very worried about you.”  
Snape’s head drops back against the edge of the tub, staring suspiciously at them.  
“Have you gotten soap in the Professor’s eyes, Harry? You need to be –“  
Snape barks out a weak laugh.  
“Hogwarts! The Dark Lord could never imagine that line of dialogue!”  
“Yes, Severus, Hogwarts. Although, what happened to you –“  
Snape looks behind them and snorts again.  
“The tormenting triumvarate is complete.”  
“Ah, my boy, I am so glad to see you somewhat recovered. Harry, Poppy, if you don’t mind, I need to speak to our Potions Master alone.”  
As Poppy bustles Harry out of the room, he glimpses Dumbledore raising Snape from the bath by magic.  
“But – if –“  
Madam Pomfrey turns to look at him.  
“If you could do that by magic, without touching him, then what have I been doing the last couple of weeks?”  
“Ah, Harry, healing doesn’t happen through spells and potions alone.”  
And with that mysterious pronouncement, Harry finds himself alone at the hospital wing door.

Harry returns the next morning, as per his schedule.  
“Do not imagine you will be bathing me. I am not going to put up with your pawing me and sniggering.”  
“I’m not sniggering, sir. And you’re not due a bath until this evening. It’s just breakfast, and the healing salve now.”  
He levitates the tray over.  
Snape lifts his heavily-bandaged hands, then glares at Harry as though it’s his fault.  
Harry looks at him a moment, chewing his lip, then sighs.  
“Well, let’s get it over with. Hm – thin porridge, and tea.”  
He lifts a spoonful to the indignant thin-lipped face.  
“Open up, sir. The sooner you get this down, the sooner we’re finished.”  
Snape opens his mouth, no doubt to offer his response, but Harry slides the spoonful in.  
He manages to cajole most of the porridge and all of the tea into the man before Madam Pomfrey appears with the tub of brown goo.  
“Ah – rescue from the Healer-in-training finally!”  
“Now, Severus. You know why Mr. Potter is looking after you.”  
“Because the foolish child could not keep his hands to himself –“  
“You owe him thanks for sending that elf of his to find you. Imagine if you’d been found by Muggles. They wouldn’t have been able to help you and you would have died in agony.”  
“That remains to be seen,” Snape grumbles, but Harry can see he’s tired, and only makes a token protest as Madam Pomfrey levitates him so Harry can smooth the salve over his back and the worst of the cuts. They’re healing slowly; the salve seems to be sucked into the healthy skin but forms a hard coating over the open weals.  
“Enough; you’re not basting me for the spit, Potter!”  
He drops his hands from the deepest cuts; one on the shoulder and a group across the top of the pelvis, and returns the jar to the table. The cuts overlay a network of older scars; Snape is obviously no stranger to this treatment.  
“I’m sorry, sir.”  
“For what?”  
“For what’s happened to you.”  
And he gets out before Snape can say anything hurtful about that.

The bandages come off two days later, during Harry’s evening visit. He carefully unwraps, staring as the long digits are revealed, breathing a sigh of relief as they appear straight and normal.  
Snape shoots him a sharp glance before returning to inspect and test the flex and sensitivity of his hands.  
That no caustic remark is forthcoming, Harry takes as high praise, and gets out before anything spoils the moment, taking one last look at the newly exposed functioning hands.

He is working the salve into the remaining, slowly healing weals the next morning when Snape casually remarks, “I suppose you are all creating batches of lemon-drops in Potions classes these days?”  
“What? Uh – no – it’s mostly reading, ever since – “ he trails off, knowing that Snape will not take kindly to news of explosions in his classes.  
“Ever since …?”  
“Well, it’s just that Binns doesn’t have any way of keeping um – accidents –“  
“Binns.”  
“Yeah, he doesn’t have the –“  
“Binns! ALBUS!”  
Harry retreats to the door. Snape looks apoplectic, his voice cracks, his eyes almost popping from his head.  
Madam Pomfrey bustles in, followed almost immediately by the Headmaster, who gives Harry a stern searching glance before looking to where Poppy is trying to make the Potions Master settle down.  
Harry only overhears “– there was no time for anyone else –“ and “– the one teacher I cannot Polyjuice into –“ before he is hustled out by the nurse.  
When he returns at lunchtime, the room is open and the Potions Master is gone.  
He finds Madam Pomfrey, who says distractedly, “No; you do not need to come back, Harry dear, he is gone.”  
“Gone? But – gone from the Hospital Wing? Gone from Hogwarts?”  
“You need not trouble yourself over Professor Snape. But I and the Headmaster and, I’m sure, the Professor, too, thank you for your assistance.”  
“But, will he be alright? Will he be safe?”  
She looks sternly at him, saying, “Professor Snape is well able to look after himself.”  
But as Harry leaves reluctantly, he knows that isn’t true. He may have thought in the past that Snape, of all people, was self-sufficient and required none of his concern. He has learnt though, that without his friends, without allies, he has no chance to stand against Voldemort.  
A new Potions teacher arrives, but Harry can’t join in the jubilation.  
Ron says, “But this means we’ve got rid of him for good! He’s gone,” then shakes his head disgustedly at Harry and joins Dean and the rest.  
Hermione asks quietly,”Do you think it was Voldemort?”  
Harry nods glumly, but can’t explain why he is so unsettled, worried, until he remembers, “The map!”  
The Gryffindors watch him go, and he feels very distant from them with their celebration.  
He finds the point marked ‘Master Snape’, no longer Professor Snape, which obscurely saddens him, and he grabs his father’s cloak and map.  
The celebration is in full flow and no one notices him leave.  
The dungeons corridors are cold and damp, as ever, and as he nears the spot where ‘Master Snape’ appears to be pacing back and forth, he suddenly thinks it would be better to visit the Library. Halfway back up the dungeon steps, he realises what’s happened. With a grim smile, he mutters, “Imperio doesn’t work on me,” and reverses his steps.  
It takes writing ‘I need to see Snape’ on the back of his hand to concentrate on before he can make himself stand in front of the stretch of wall, unbroken except for the carving of a leering face.  
Taking the cloak off his head, he makes himself face the carving and asks, “Um. I’d like to speak to Professor Snape, please?”  
“No such person,” the carving sneers back at him.  
“Well, Master Snape, then, or Mister Snape.”  
“No.”  
“He’s there; I know he’s there!”  
“He may be ‘there’ or he may not, but he don’t want to see you, so there!”  
Harry glances down at the Marauders’ Map; the point marked Master Snape has moved away and is still.  
“I know you’re there, sir; I just want to talk to you. I’ll be back.”

It takes time, but Hermione is intrigued by Occlumency, and with her help, Harry finally thinks he can block.  
He returns to the stretch of dungeon wall behind which he has watched Master Snape pace, and tries again.  
“Sir, I need your help. I think I’ve learnt Occlumency, but I haven’t got a Legilimens to practice with. Please, sir, I want to defeat Voldemort, and I think you do, too. Will you help me, please?”  
The carving sneers at him, the long empty subterranean corridor is silent. But Harry feels a brush of mind against his, and puts up the shields he’s been practicing with Hermione.  
It isn’t elegant, and it isn’t easy once the mental pressure is increased, but Harry manages to fend off the mental intrusion.  
With what sounds suspiciously like a blown raspberry to Harry, the carving and the wall it sits upon forms a door and opens.  
“The Headmaster does not want you here.”  
Harry takes a long stare – Snape looks unkempt, stressed and more nervy than he’s ever seen – then looks away.  
“The Headmaster hasn’t spoken to me for months.”  
“Poor Potter. Are you feeling neglected? The world does not revolve around you.”  
Harry takes a deep breath. He needs to do this.  
“I need to learn how to defeat Vol –“  
Snape hisses, wheels on him, “You will NOT say that name in these rooms!”  
“Right. OK. Fine. I need to learn how to defeat him. I don’t know where to start. Every time, up to now, that I’ve met him, I’ve had help. I’ve asked for help, and I’ve gotten it. So now, I’m asking again. Please. Will you help me?”  
Snape is staring at him in a half-mad, half-calculating way that sends shivers down Harry’s spine.  
“And what do I get from helping you?”  
He needs this man’s help, he thinks. No one else has the knowledge.  
“I reckon you can ask for anything. If I don’t defeat him, and it seems to me I’ll have to, as it looks like he’s after me, he’ll kill me without much of a fight. I don’t want that to happen. I want to make it as hard as possible for him. I don’t know what the Order are doing, but if I have to wait until I’m out of school before anyone will train me, I reckon it’s going to be too late. Nobody wants to teach me what I think I’m going to need to know. Will you?”  
He looks at the man, thinking, and you won’t be stuck here, hiding in these rooms, just in case Snape is still lurking somewhere in his mind.  
Snape spins away from him, paces to the fireplace.  
“You are very foolish, offering me ‘anything’. For all you know, I might take you up on that, and believe me, boy, there are worse things than death,” he mutters.  
“But you want him dead, too,” Harry states, suddenly convinced as he’s never been before.  
“Yes. Payment – I will think on that,” he shoots Harry a piercing look, “But as to teaching; you will obey, without question, whatever I order you to do whilst under instruction. No argument, no hesitation. Do you understand? Do you imagine you could do that?”  
“I can do it,” Harry answers stoutly.  
“Hm. I doubt it. Fridays. Midnight. You still have that blasted cloak?”  
Harry pulls it from his pocket.  
“Well, use it. And no word to anyone, anyone at all about this.”  
“I haven’t told anyone, and I won’t. Thank you, sir.”  
“You won’t be thanking me in a few weeks’ time. And keep blocking your mind,” a sudden lash from Snape’s to his mind, which Harry scrambles to block, “All the time. It must become automatic, like breathing.”

Snape as an instructor is fierce, unrelenting, cruel.  
Harry drags himself down to breakfast aching and weary, though the bruises and spell-marks are magicked away. Hermione and Ron are worried, but Harry fobs them off half-truths about secret lessons, with grave warnings not to let anything slip to anyone, not even Order members. Not even Ron’s dad, or brothers. Not anyone. He occasionally thinks he catches Dumbledore’s eye on him, but when he looks, the headmaster is talking to a teacher, or leaving the room. He hasn’t looked back at Harry since the Hospital Wing.  
Harry thinks Snape would go mad if it wasn’t for the midnight lessons. It’s obvious he puts a huge amount of thought and planning into the meetings, and Harry comes away with lists of obscure spells to research, exercises, both mental and physical, to complete daily, lists of ingredients to swipe during Potions and Herbology, and an appreciation for the breadth and depth of Snape’s knowledge.  
Hermione is puzzled but pleased to find Harry in the library so often, but Ron is disgusted by his retiring from the Quidditch team.  
“Ginny’s just as good a Seeker as me, she may as well get the practice.”  
“But it’s just not the same; you’re turning into Hermione, studying all the time!”  
“Can’t be helped; this is important.”  
“Winning the Quidditch Cup is important.”

But not as important as when Harry finally stands before the gates of Hogwarts, supposedly enticed out by a vision of Dumbledore spreadeagled against those gates.  
“Ah – you have come to my summons, Harry Potter. Now we will finish this. Just the two of us, yesss?”  
Voldemort is more snakelike, less human than the last time Harry saw him, and he appears to be alone.  
“You – where’s the Headmaster?”  
The high, hissing laugh is repulsive, but Harry holds his nerve, playing the game.  
“You foolish boy – he is not here. You are but a toy thrown into an adults’ game. Let us see how you deal with the real world when no one is protecting you.”  
Harry deflects the silent curse cast without any outward sign, still pretending to be confused.  
“But he was here! I saw him!”  
“You saw what I wanted you to see. You cannot win against me.”  
Several wordless curses later, Voldemort is looking about suspiciously.  
“Who else is here? Who is with you, boy? Answer me!”  
Harry hears the subliminal Imperio in the command and turns it back on Voldemort.  
“No one is here. You stand alone. Completely alone.”  
Harry projects the image of Voldemort standing on a hill of innumerable bodies.  
And in the moment Voldemort hesitates, Snape stands behind Harry, and together, they perform the spell they have crafted.  
He is caught with the worm of doubt and trapped in the sphere of his own world, the world where he stands alone, never dying, never fading, but alone, completely alone, staring mesmerised at the reflection of himself. The sphere shrinks until it disappears, a grain of dust on the path between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.  
A gust of wind swirls up the dust, and the grain containing Voldemort could be anywhere.  
Harry turns to look at Snape, who, for a moment, meets his eyes. Then the black eyes lift and become closed off and fathomless, as Dumbledore appears on the path before them.  
“What are you doing out of Hogwarts with Harry?”  
“He’s gone!” Harry can’t contain his joy.  
“Severus?”  
“Indeed, it is as Potter says.”  
The headmaster’s eyes flick between them, “Harry, will you excuse us, please? I believe I need to speak with Severus.”  
Snape gives a tiny nod to Harry, “Your friends may wish to know this, but just your closest friends.”  
Harry walks back towards the school, feeling let down. He glances back to where Dumbledore and Snape are apparently arguing. He grimaces – old enough to defeat Voldemort, but not old enough to talk about it. He presumes he can now tell Ron and Hermione Snape is alive, and has been teaching him, but is careful to stress that they mustn’t let that news, or any of it really, go any further.  
He looks at the map that evening, and seeing the dot marked ‘Master Snape’ is back, races down to the deserted dungeon corridor.  
There is a trunk in the center of the room, and Snape is obviously packing.  
“You’re going?”  
“Obviously.” Snape won’t look at him, but concentrates on folding black robes, stacking books.  
“But – I thought you’d return to teaching.”  
“Whatever gave you the idea that I enjoyed teaching?”  
“But that’s what you do.”  
“It is what I have had to do for the past – too many years.”  
“But – what about what I owe you? Your payment? You said you’d think about it?”  
Harry is desperately trying to think of what to say; he suspects Snape will disappear into the world and somehow, that seems impossible; a Hogwarts without Snape would be like a Hogwarts without Dumbledore. And he realises, startled, that he doesn’t want Snape to vanish from his life.  
“Consider my liberty to walk away from Hogwarts payment enough. Do you not have Quidditch practice, or homework, or something else to occupy yourself with?”  
“What? What – you think you can just push me back into being a schoolboy, just make everything we’ve done disappear?”  
“But that is what you are, and that is what you must be, for another year. What you have done – you must put that aside, and be a schoolboy again.”  
Harry looks at him, betrayed by the one person he thought understood.  
“You – Dumbledore – everyone is just going to go back to life as usual?”  
Snape finally looks up at him, but his face is in shadow, and Harry can’t see his eyes clearly.  
“You will know. You will never forget what we’ve done here. Think on that. Now, begone. I must finish, and leave.”  
Harry turns, stumbling a little, says, “I hope you remember, too. And I hope you find someplace you’re happy.”  
As he goes blindly out the door, he thinks he hears a soft , ‘Farewell, Harry’, but it can’t be, because Snape has never called him by his name.

Many years, and, it sometimes feels like several lifetimes later, Head Healer Potter feels a weight lift from him that he’d forgotten he carries. The lean, elegant man who has caught his eye across the room has passed unnoticed by many at the fundraising ball, but as soon as Harry sees him, he knows.  
He has time to murmur an apology to the group he is speaking with. Time to send an inquiring glance, and pick up two glasses of white wine from a passing waiter. Time to consider what he wants to say, how he wants to phrase his feelings. Time to look, and be looked at, and know that there will be time enough, now.  
He hands a glass over, feeling a frisson when cool long fingers touch his, and says, “Hello, Severus.”


End file.
